


Building Our Own

by raendown



Category: Naruto
Genre: Generation Swap, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 14:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17408348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: In which Obito helped found the village, Madara was a member of Team Minato, and Kakashi gets lost down a few different paths in his life.





	Building Our Own

Kakashi was pretty sure he didn’t like Madara. Pretty sure. There were times when it was really difficult to stay inside his shell and hate the world because watching Madara – barely taller than himself yet filled with enough attitude for the whole village – face off against the taller, brighter, unsuspecting Minato-sensei was always the highlight of his week. Knowing the two of them had so much in common did not mean Kakashi wanted to make friends with the other boy. He didn’t need friends to become the greatest ninja this world had ever seen and restore his family’s honor.

Anyway that Gai idiot followed him around too much already. His non-existent friend quota had been filled, thank you very much.

It was still kind of hard to ignore Madara. The boy refused to not be seen but he wasn’t obnoxious about it. There was just something magnetic about his competence even at such a young age, the confidence in every move he made, even the spiky stupid mess of his hair. Most of the Uchiha that Kakashi met had beautiful smooth hair but Madara seemed to have skipped that gene; his hair stuck straight out from his head in stiff spikes reminiscent of Kakashi’s own locks. Yet another thing they had in common and could have commiserated about together – if he had time for stupid things like friendship. Which he did not.

Much to their sensei’s despair, Madara didn’t seem all that upset that one of his teammates refused to bond with him. The majority of his concentration went to edging a few words about his precious baby brother in to every single conversation ever. None of them had ever met Izuna but after less than a month of being a team they all could have probably picked him out of a crowd and recited at least ten different points of trivia about him off the tops of their heads.

And that right there was the one thing that truly set them apart, the one bit that stopped Kakashi from allowing himself to at least like the boy, even if only from afar. Where Kakashi had lost everyone he ever loved Madara still had someone, even if it was just a useless little brother. He still had someone to care about, someone precious, and besides that he had a clan that treated him like absolute royalty. Apparently Madara was a direct descendant of the great Uchiha Obito, founder of their village and betrayer of the Shodaime Hokage. Kakashi didn’t really see why he got to be venerated for being related to a traitor when others were shunned for the same thing but the one time he had tried to question it Minato-sensei had hushed him and Kakashi felt his heart grow a little bit smaller.

So Kakashi stayed small and quiet and spent the hours he wasn’t training with his team training in private instead. He would grow bigger, stronger, and someday he would be the one to show Madara his back. He would be the one that others watched from afar.

He would restore the honor his father had lost. Only then would his life be worth something.

-

“Your father’s honor is not your own.”

Madara’s words left him reeling, adrift and unsteady where he had always felt solid logic underneath his feet. Kakashi waited for the world to stop spinning before baring his teeth behind the mask that hid them.

“What would you know about it?” he snarled. Madara scoffed.

“I’m descended from the biggest traitor this village has ever seen but does my clan care about that? No. They care that I inherited his strength. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘innocent until proven guilty’ before?”

“At least you have a clan! Don’t talk like you know me!”

“Of course I know you, dumb ass.” Everything Madara said was always said with confidence, as though it was an absolute immutable truth. It made refuting him very difficult sometimes because the way he spoke made Kakashi want to _believe_.

He resisted because clearly no one else should have a say in his situation not when they weren’t the ones living it.

“I will restore my father’s honor!” he began. He got no farther in to his rant before Madara rolled his eyes and interrupted.

“There’s nothing to restore, he’s dead. We build our own honor. And you have plenty of that even if you’re an asshole. Take the stick out of your ass and wake up. You’re _Kakashi_ , not _Sakumo_. You can’t fix his mistake any more than I can. He didn’t even make one!”

“He – what?”

Kakashi sat, stunned, and listened to the entire fifteen minutes of Madara’s rant about how true dishonor was in abandoning your comrades and how the entire concept of their village itself had been founded on the desire to protect one’s comrades. Apparently the history books left out quite a bit of information about Uchiha Obito’s life before he abandoned Konoha; Kakashi never knew it was him that had named their fledgling settlement or him that had come up with the idea in the first place as a way to protect his own precious ones.

All through the boy’s impassioned speech he remained silent, soaking in every word like a message from on high, and when Madara finally stopped to pant angrily, kicking at a nearby tree stump, he cleared his throat with more awkwardness than should have fit in to his twelve year old body.

“We should find Rin,” he murmured. It was the best he could do for an apology. Madara narrowed his eyes, probably trying to determine whether or not he meant that, then nodded decisively.

“Good to see you got your head out of your ass. Damn right we go find her. No more of this ‘the mission is more important’ bullshit, alright?”

“Yeah…”

“So what are we waiting for? Aren’t you supposed to be mission leader? Lead on, jōnin-taichou!”

Amazed that his teammate still trusted him to do so when he had only just a few minutes ago suggested abandoning Rin to her fate, Kakashi nodded and closed his eyes to think. “My summons will be able to follow her trail more easily than we can.”

Kannabi Bridge went on to become the mission famous as a long-awaited turning point in the war, the incident that finally gave them a clear advantage to end things in Konoha’s favor. For the ones who carried it out, however, it was memorable for a different reason. The mission to Kannabi Bridge was the day they finally – _finally_ – became a true unit, the day Madara brushed that chip off of Kakashi’s shoulder and offered the hand of friendship instead.

It also became the day Kakashi would look back on and realize he was completely and utterly screwed.

Of course he would fall in love with his best friend. Of fucking course.

-

ANBU suited him a little bit too well but that was fine. Everything was fine as long as he had Madara there with him, eagle mask covering his face and endless black hair spilling around it like a cloud of death. He wondered why they bothered with the masks sometimes. Both of them were entirely too identifiable by their hair alone so really all the masks did was add a bit of extra dramatic flair.

Shaking his head, Kakashi forced his attention back to the task at hand, pushing just a little more speed out of his tired legs. The two of them had run countless missions together since becoming true comrades, both in the name of Team Minato and as the perfectly matched pair they were now in ANBU, but never had they run a mission this important before. It was only the second time Rin had been captured and already it was starting to feel like a pattern. He wondered which idiot had been the one to decide this time that she was the weak link in their band of comrades. Rin was many things but she was not weak.

As evidenced by the carnage that came in to view when they finally found her. More than half of the bodies that lay dead around her were decorated with perfectly normal wounds, their flesh opened by blades and the extra clean sort of cut that could only come from her weaponized medical jutsu. The rest had been mauled as though by a hungry beast – and a beast she looked, right then.

Her pretty brown eyes glowing red and her entire body bubbling with a sickly green cloak of pure poisonous chakra, it was hard to tell whether or not she recognized them at first. A low growl rumbled across the space between them and the two young men shared a look before hastily removing their masks.

“It’s fine now,” Madara attempted a soothing voice. “They’re dead.”

“Don’t,” she warning when he tried to take a step towards her.

“It’s just me, it’s just Madara.”

“Shut up! I know who you are, dummy!” The growl in her words cracked and hiked to a whine that Kakashi recognized all too well. He’d raised eight dogs on his own; he knew what a wounded animal sounded like. “I can’t go back with you. Not like this.”

Unfortunately neither of them had been born with an ounce of tact. Kakashi snorted. “Can and will. Haven’t you heard the rumors, Rin-chan? We’ve had a beast living with us the whole time and I’ve never seen Kushina-nee bite anyone’s head off yet. Well, not literally. She’s scary but she’s not out for blood no matter what the monster trapped inside her wants. She can help you.”

It was a terrible thing to see in a friend, that broken light of hope too small to be believed in. Kakashi inched forward, saddened when she flinched away but determined to reach her, and when her bubbling chakra burned his skin he refused to show any sign of pain.

“Come home. If we can survive Madara for this long then we can survive you. He’s more of an animal than anyone.”

His friend’s offended screech broke the tension and Rin’s startled laugh was a balm on all their souls, just enough of a positive emotion to push the beast in her belly down. The effort left her exhausted but Kakashi caught her and Madara took point to protect them both as they turned for home, wearing a pout still but it was a very cute pout so Kakashi only teased him a little bit. It was good to be together.

-

“That’s a big fox.”

“Your observations are as astute as ever,” Madara’s voice drawled from behind his shoulder.

“We have to fight that big fox? He’s just a big scary dog. I don’t wanna hit a dog, Dara-chan!”

“Stop calling me that!”

Kakashi smiled briefly to see Madara stomp one foot. Fifteen years old and he still hadn’t grown out of the habit. Then he turned his eyes back to the carnage in front of them when Rin touched down at his other side.

“Isobu says that Kurama isn’t acting like himself,” she reported. “Something must be controlling him.”

“Right. Let’s find out who, shall we?” Kakashi narrowed his eyes, all traces of amusement gone from their little trio of death as they all pushed off the Hokage monument they had been perched on to make their assessment. Team Minato, as they still sometimes thought of themselves, were not the first line of defense in any fight. They were the ones who ended the fight.

When they found the man controlling the Kyuubi he was much older than they might have guessed – ancient, in fact. The fact that he could still move the way he did seemed to be due to the fact that one entire half of his body had been reconstructed with an unidentified white substance that reformed and reattached itself when injured, healing faster than they could hurt him. And that wasn’t even the part that made the fight difficult. No, that was the fully formed Sharingan in his one good eye, an abomination that enraged Madara.

It took all three of them to bring him down, one unit moving perfectly in sync. It took Isobu and Susano’o and eight dog summons. It took everything they had but in the end Uchiha Obito lay ancient and exposed at their feet, screaming his impotent rage and crying out revenge against a man who had never truly wronged him.

“Senju Hashirama is dead,” Kakashi muttered in exhaustion, kicking away a severed limb still trying to crawl back to its host. “You should be too. Hold still and let me fix that.”

“He abandoned me! He will pay! The world will pay! I will have what I am owed! The perfect world, don’t you see? We could all live in the perfect world!”

“Something tells me your perfect world would not be like mine.” With his blade raised Kakashi shook his head in pity. “The world owes you nothing. Those who go back on their word like he did are trash, that’s true. But those who abandon their comrades? People like you who break bonds, you’re nothing but scum. Goodnight, Uchiha Obito, I hope you find rest.”

“Poetic,” Madara noted, watching as Kakashi impassively drew a blade through their defeated enemy’s throat.

“Maa, I didn’t mean to be.”

Rin groaned and sat down on the bloody grass. Then she fell over backwards with a sigh of relief. “Well that wasn’t what I wanted to do with my Tuesday,” she said.

“Any chance one of you can sense how Minato-sensei is doing with the Kyuubi? I’m fresh out of chakra.” Very gently, slowly so as not to jostle his sore body, Kakashi lowered himself down to join Rin. Madara snorted at them both.

“Your reserves are pathetic,” he pointed out. “The Kyuubi’s chakra has been split but I can still feel Kushina-nee. It would seem sensei was able to seal the beast in to two places at once. Very interesting.”

Both of the two on the ground made soft noises of curious agreement but investigating would have to wait. Just knowing their precious ones were alive was enough for now. Everything else could be left until after they had recovered the feeling in all of their limbs, possibly until after they had slept for a week. They had gone head to head with a legend today, after all. That definitely deserved a nap.

Madara wandered over to perch next to Kakashi, brushing something out of his hair without seeming to realize he was doing so. As much as he didn’t seem to want to admit it he was just as tired as the other two. Kakashi held his breath and allowed gloved fingers to trace the shape of his jaw.

“You took a lot of stupid chances today,” his friend murmured. Kakashi nodded.

“So did you.”

“Hn. Dumb ass.” His piece spoken, Madara’s eyes rolled back in his head and his body gave in to the exhaustion he’d been trying not to show. Unfortunately when he passed out he flopped down across the other two, who both grunted in surprise and then wriggled in dismay to find themselves trapped, lacking the energy to roll the idiot off of them.

Rin was the first to give up, flopping back down to the grass with a sigh. “You know for a second there I thought he was going to lean down and kiss you.”

Then she laughed as best she could at the redness of Kakashi’s face and the disconnected syllables gurgling out from behind his mask.

-

Twenty years old was a terrible age when all of his friends were at least one year older. Twenty years old meant that all of his friends could drink while they oversaw the chūnin exams here in Suna but all he could do was sip soda and watch. What was the point of such a high drinking age anyway? And who had ever heard of a shinobi being denied a drink? He’d been getting served back home since he reached jōnin at the age of twelve.

Actually that probably wasn’t a high point and Minato-sensei should probably make sure that practice wasn’t still being followed. But his point still stood!

Kakashi felt cheated when his decision to go out with his friends in the hopes of watching them all make fools of themselves ended with sitting in the corner of a dusty Suna club watching over the ladies’ purses while Madara snoozed next to him. He’d really been hoping Madara would get drunk and do something stupid. Or maybe that he would get absolutely blackout drunk and do something completely out of the blue like, say, decide to make out with the comrade who’d been silently in love with him for almost a decade now.

Life was so unfair.

Jerking his elbow in to the other man’s side at least got him the amusing reaction of bleary eyes jerking open and an angry expression. He muttered something too but it was impossible to hear over the thumping music so Kakashi shrugged and shook his head, completely unrepentant. Madara scowled deeper and leaned over to put his lips right next to Kakashi’s ear.

“I said, you’re a dick. I was trying to sleep until we can get the hell out of here.”

Kakashi pushed away the urge to shiver and shouted over the music. “So let’s get out of here.”

Rin and Anko both tried to wheedle them in to staying when Kakashi wound his way through the dance floor to give them back their purses but he skipped free of their reaching hands and hustled back to Madara’s side. Stumbling outside was heaven on his ears, stepping passed the barrier of excessive noise and in to the blessed silence of the desert at night. Both of them groaned with relief and rubbed at their aching heads as they hurried away, ignoring the judging eyes of the club’s bouncers, eager to get back to their hotel rooms and just relax. Neither of them were really the sort to enjoy this stuff anyway. A nice homey bar would have been more their style but it had been Rin who invited them out so it had been her choice of venue.

Madara’s steps were surprisingly steady for someone who had pounded back enough alcohol to fall asleep in that blaring chaos. He wove side to side a bit whenever something interesting caught his eye but for the most part he didn’t seem too dizzy and Kakashi felt cheated all over again that he wasn’t needed to heroically offer his shoulder as support.

“Where are we?” The sudden question made him furrow his brows.

“Uh…Suna?”

“No! I mean I don’t recognize this street.”

Stopping to look around, Kakashi bit his lip. “Huh. You’re right. I think we’re lost.”

“That’s fine. As long as I’m lost with you.” Madara shrugged and continued on while Kakashi’s feet stumbled to a halt, one hand pressed against his chest to sooth his suddenly racing heart.

He glared as best he could and hoped the darkness covered the blush on his face.

“You can’t just…say stuff like that.”

“Oh. Shit. You’re right.” Confusingly, Madara looked embarrassed as well to realize what he’d said, clapping a hand over his mouth and sending a guilty look out the corner of his eyes.

“Wait. I know I’m right but why do you think I’m right?” Kakashi asked.

“Cause I don’t want you to know that I like you!”

“Maa, of course you like me, we’re best friends…”

Now frustrated that he wasn’t being understood, Madara stomped his foot and turned to shake a finger under Kakashi’s nose. “No! I mean _like_ like you! _Love_ like you! Don’t misunderstand me! I swear sometimes you do it on purpose because you know it annoys me and–”

His friend continued to rant but most of it washed over Kakashi, who had of course heard this lecture a hundred times and more. Well, except for the part where Madara was apparently in love with him, that bit was new. And mind-blowing. Life-changing, really. It took a while to sink in that Madara didn’t seem to realize what he had just confessed, either because he was too drunk or because nothing else ever mattered when he’d found something to be irritated by.

Why Kakashi found that cute was a mystery.

He did finally shut up when Kakashi kissed him, though. Actually, to be fair, he did make a few aborted attempts at speaking before finally giving in and kissing back, one hand fisting in the front of Kakashi’s vest to keep him in place. When they slowly pulled apart he licked his lips and fell immediately back in to a scowl.

“The _mask_ , you idiot,” was all he said. Kakashi scrambled to pull it down out of the way.

“You want–?”

Madara’s answer was another kiss. And it turned out he was right, it was definitely better with the mask out of the way.

Someday, when he had eventually recovered his scrambled wits and picked himself up from the puddle of goo he could feel his body melting in to, he would need to say thank you. Not for the kiss, although the kiss was good enough on its own to warrant starting a diary just to describe it and Kakashi very much hoped they could do this again. Preferably every day from now on. But eventually he would need to impress upon Madara how grateful he was to have the other man in his life, how important it was that Madara had never abandoned him even when he was a young child with a terrible weight on his shoulders that he should never have been carrying in the first place.

Eventually he would need to say that he owed everything he was as a person to Madara.

But not now. Right now he pressed forward slowly to bury his fingers in long thick hair and cling to the one person he had been striving for since long before he had ever acknowledged it.

 _My honor is my own_ , he thought as they stumbled against the front of a nearby shop, his thoughts going back to a moment between them half a lifetime ago. _And I owe my honor to you, who showed me how to believe in it. How to believe in us._


End file.
